Register a children’s social care service (SC1)
Apply to register a children’s home, adoption or fostering agency, residential family centre or residential holiday scheme.
Applies to England
Who can register
You can register as an individual provider, organisation or partnership.
If you are involved in the governance or running of the service (for instance, as a manager, responsible individual or director) you may also need to apply to be connected with the service.
What you will need
If you’ve applied to register with Ofsted before, we will need your unique reference number (URN). We also need the URN of:
- any holding companies registered with Ofsted
- any registered services in which you have financial interests
Evidence of financial viability
You will need to provide:
- a financial reference from your bank
- your business plan
- a cashflow forecast
- if you are registering as a company, your last 2 annual reports and accounts (if available)
How you will run your service
We will need details of:
- all individuals you want to link to the registration (manager, responsible individual, partners or directors)
- your policies on safeguarding, prevention of bullying, complaints procedure and location assessment
- the range of fees that you will charge
- details of your premises and any travel arrangements between premises
- evidence of planning permission
- the date you plan to open your service
Policy documents for your new service
You will need to provide:
- your statement of purpose
- your equalities policy
- a copy of the certificate of insurance or written confirmation that insurance will be provided
- guidance for children (unless you are applying to register a holiday scheme)
- your missing child policy (children’s homes, independent fostering agencies and residential holiday schemes only)
- your behaviour management policy (children’s homes, independent fostering agencies and residential holiday schemes only)
- safeguarding policy
- prevention of bullying policy (unless you are applying to register an adoption support agency or voluntary adoption agency
- complaints procedure
Children’s homes
If you are registering a children’s home, you will also need:
- the maximum number of children you will look after
- the CQC registration number, if any
- the DfE school number, if any
- a location risk assessment (risk assessment of the home’s local area)
Apply now
Register as a children’s social care provider
Residential holiday schemes for disabled children must contact Ofsted instead.
Fees
You must pay a fee to register.
Once you are registered, you must pay the same fee annually.
What happens next
All managers, responsible individuals, directors or partners linked to the service must tell Ofsted about themselves separately. This application is not complete until they have done this.
We will get in touch if we have any questions.
Residential holiday schemes for disabled children
If you want to start a registered holiday scheme for disabled children you must contact Ofsted by emailing sc.admin@ofsted.gov.uk.
Help
If you need help with your application, call 0300 123 1231 (8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday) or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk.
If you need an accessible version, email sc.admin@ofsted.gov.uk.
Last updated 1 July 2021 + show all updates
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Out of date PDF form removed. If you wish to register a residential holiday scheme for disabled children, you must follow the instructions to contact Ofsted.
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First published.